Monday, 17 February 2014

Scots National Lottery

Of course a 'Yes' vote will also mean that Scots will no longer be allowed to buy tickets for the National Lottery; they'll need their own Lotto game, with a (proportionate) weekly jackpot prize of £150,000. And with much better odds, that'll send them into a lotto frenzy in Inverbollack.

But of course they won't be able to use the .uk internet top-level domain tag. However, most of the esses have already gone; Sudan's got .sd, Seychelles have got .sc, and .sa, .sb, .se, .sg to .so are taken, as are .sr to .sz with one exception. The only codes left for Scotland are .sf, .sp, .sq and .sw. And instead of the international +44 dialling code for the UK, they'll need a new 3-digit code (all the 2 digit ones have gone). I think +856, next to Cambodia, may be free. They'll need phones quite a lot, as Scotland won't be able to afford a postal service. In contrast, Royal Mail's costs will plummet once it doesn't have to maintain daily deliveries to some of the most isolated homes in our archipelago. Still, I'm sure the new SBC will make some fine TV and radio programmes, not at all parochial. After all, some very good TV has been made on the tiniest budgets. Talk shows, mostly, but still. And once they manage to convert all the Sterling vending machines to whatever new coinage they'll be using, they'll even be able to buy rail tickets to come to the UK and watch our TV whenever they want.

It is my fervent hope that Scotland will become independent after next September, and I wish Ms Sturgeon and dear Alex a fair following wind and god speed. Our political class in Westminster are wholeheartedly against any thought of an English parliament along the lines of Scotland, or even Wales. Oh no such timorous moves to an English means of self expression are out of the question.But, if Scotland hives off we get de facto independence, so bring it on.

Raedwald has indeed chosen a rewarding theme: we can go further on Internet country names.

A particularly concern is for the 'English Liberation Front'. They have some interests in common with the UK republican movement.

.gb (already reserved to us) would, of course, satisfy the republicans: but only if we dumped Ulster and kept Scotland. [And that raises the question, what letters do Ulster people stick to their cars when travelling abroad?]

.en is up for grabs; I suggest the English reserve this: sooner rather than later.

.rb (Rule Britania) is also currently free. However, without both Faslane/Coulport and the history of Scapa Flow, that would perhaps be a hostage to fortune.

Back to the Scots: I see that .nc is taken by New Caledonia. [And why did they keep the name, given by Captain Cook, when Napoleonic forces took over?] Sadly, there is little left in .c* for ordinary Caledonia. But what about .oc, still free, for Old Caledonia (or even Original Caledonia).

And what about .oe: for Olde England.

Or .me for Merrie England. Oh bother! If avoiding syntactic confusion, that one has already gone for the non-national personal.

Albion is no help: .al has gone, not unexpectedly, to Albania. Even Perfidious Albion does not help.

The Welsh and Northern Irish too need to look to their possible future independence. .wa is still free; sadly .cy and .cm have both gone. .ul is still free, but .ni has been allocated to Nicaragua.

Unforeseen consequences is the name of the game. Down the line I see N.Ireland being subsumed back into the Irish republic. I see clearly England joining the revitalised Euro and finally realising the futility of Westminster party politics enabled at last to abolish a whole useless layer of politicians and their endlessly expensive infrastructure of hangers on. The outlook for England is all good. Rejoice I say!

As soon as a "Yes" vote is declared both the UK and EU politicians will completely change their views and policies, and will bend over backwards to do whatever Scotland wants, without quibble and without cost, regardless of anything in those boring old treaties that nobody cares about.

Then we will enter the sunlit uplands where the magic money tree is always in flower and nobody has to pay for anything.

Rail. After The Day will we really need those highly subsidised lines for the Scots elite to run up and down? If the Scots want the lines to run north of Carlisle and Newcastle they may have to pay for them.